In 1997, American author/historian Jared Diamond published “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.” Winning the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1998, the book would seem to epitomize the world-view of both our Western “intellectuals” and the Political Left over the last several decades.
As stated by Wikipedia, Diamond argues “against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority.” The people of both Europe and Asia, apparently, out-performed the Indigenous of other continents primarily due to the benefits afforded them by their weather and geography. Moreover their proximity, we are told, allowed them to interact both commercially and culturally, thereby learning from the achievements of their neighbours. But gee, the Indigenous of the Americas also lived in close proximity yet some were still cannibalizing their neighbours when Columbus arrived 500 years ago! The notion that their environment led the Ancient Greeks to discuss the most sophisticated of moral/intellectual issues 2500 years ago, while others around the planet lived as little more than animals, is patently preposterous. But of course Diamond’s book is but one of many that support the superficial, sentimental, Neo-Marxist notion that all disparities in human achievement are the result of oppression, if not by the vileness of other Humans, then by the injustices of Geography and Weather!
Diamond’s book implicitly endorses the Post-Modern Relativism that has come to dominate Western intellectual circles. If our Ideas and Values are determined by the impact of the environment to which we are born, then obviously no set of Cultural Norms can be deemed Objectively superior to any other. Published in 1987, Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind” finds this world-view utterly repulsive. Celebrating Man’s capacity as an Intelligent Being fully able to transcend the limitations imposed on him by his circumambient world, Bloom, as Wikipedia puts it, “attacks the moral relativism that he claims has taken over American Universities for the barrier it constructs to the notions of truth, critical thinking, and genuine knowledge.” Yes, Inclusiveness by definition frowns upon critical thinking, thereby leaving the contemporary Left with no other option than the charge of Racism for anyone who dares suggest that Socrates and Aristotle may have been infinitely more evolved than any North or South American Indigenous who ever lived. Apparently, if we are to believe Jared Diamond, the amazing diversity of philosophical viewpoints proffered by the Ancient Greeks was no more than a product of the benign topography and climate to which they were born. If you believe otherwise, you are clearly a White Supremacist!
And oh, by the way, you may have realized that the Relativism endorsed by Post-Moderns, ironically makes everything they say mere intellectual rubbish.